ATLANTA — United Health Foundation’s latest health rankings place Georgia 37th in the country this year, the same as a year ago.

There’s some encouraging news for the state in the rankings released Tuesday. The foundation said smoking has decreased from 22.1 percent to 17.6 percent of the adult population in the past five years. But it said nearly 1.3 million adults still smoke in Georgia.

It said that in the past five years, the violent crime rate has decreased from 446 to 403 offenses per 100,000 people.
But it said that in the past 10 years, diabetes has increased from 6.8 percent to 9.7 percent of the adult population, increasing the number of adults with diabetes in Georgia to 698,000.

In the past 10 years, the percentage of children in poverty increased from 16.4 percent to 24.7 percent for those younger than 18.